Michael Urie is best known for playing flamboyant and bitchy personal assistant Marc St James in ABC comedy Ugly Betty, and has won rave reviews for his one-man off-Broadway comedy Buyer & Cellar.

The American actor now brings Jonathan Tolins's show to the West End next month. Urie plays Alex More, an unemployed actor working as a caretaker in Barbra Streisand's real-life mall in the basement of her Malibu home.

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Digital Spy caught up with Michael Urie about making his UK stage debut, whether he is scared of Streisand attending herself, and which sitcom star was intended for the role originally.

Buyer & Cellar and it looks like a fascinating little story, you must be excited making your UK debut with the play?

"Oh yeah! I mean, this part has been the part that keeps giving back. We started in a little theatre downtown in New York and it was really well received there so we took it to a bigger theatre and it just kept extending and extending and then I took it all over the country, and it's really been the little show that could.

"And now it's coming to London! For a lot of us, the idea that a show can start, as most plays do, as very small, very controlled with a select group of people around and then grow little bit by little bit and becoming a commercial hit in New York, and then getting invited to London. It really has lived the fullest life you can imagine."

When you first heard about the story, could you believe that Streisand's mall was real?

"Well, no, I still can't believe it's real! I had heard about this thing before John told me about it but I didn't really know the extent of it. I think I got it from my mom first; I was like, 'hey mom, I might be in a play about this place, here's the book', my mom loves Barbara Streisand.

"I didn't wanna get too invested in case it didn't work out, but at least mom will like it. Because you never know, you have to keep everything at arm's length until it becomes real, and so, I was really excited about it but it wasn't written for me originally. So when John told me about it, he said, 'someday, I want you to play this part. But I've written it for Jesse Tyler Ferguson from Modern Family'.

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"He came up with the idea and someone said 'if you write that, Jesse would be into it', and Jesse was like 'I love that idea, I am into it', and then it got written and people wanted to produce it, it became real, and Jesse still wanted to do it but couldn't commit to it because he's got a TV schedule. So he graciously gave his blessing to John to choose me instead, and I got the job."

Having appeared in the play before, do you feel protective over the role?

"Well, other people have done it already, and I know a lot of them. I had an understudy in New York who took it when I was on vacation, and he went on for about four performances and he was great. I saw my replacement, Christopher Hanke do it, who was also great.

"It's been done in a lot of different theatres all over the country because it's so easy to produce and there's so many great actors that could play that part. So it's exciting, and it'll be interesting to see as I get older, and see younger guys playing the part, it's a really wonderful play and a wonderful and in good hands will always be fun."

Do you think it'll be a completely different experience doing it in the UK?

"I think it'll be different and the same. I think the show is so universal at the end of the day, it's about money and things and what they mean, and celebrity and show business. The story is about someone at the bottom of the barrel who befriends someone at the top of the heap, and that is completely universal.

"There's some places in the States, in New York, in Los Angeles and DC, it's very much in the forefront of everyone's minds â€" the haves and the have-nots - and I know that's also true in London. Certainly in London, maybe not in other parts of the UK, but certainly in London, the class system is very much alive and well!

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"In any major city, I guess that's true. I think everyone can relate to that, and I know people love Barbara Streisand over there, and that does not hurt. Having an idea of who she is and what she's like is extremely helpful when seeing the show, you don't need to, but it helps."

Has Barbra Streisand seen the show, or do you know if she's had any kind of reaction to it?

"I know that when I was interviewed for Entertainment Weekly, they asked me what I'd do if she came, and I said 'I'd s**t my pants'. I was told that she read it and then said, 'oh, he's smart'. So I know she's aware of it and people have reported back very favourably, people close to her; her representatives, her close friends have been, and they, or they seem to, love the show and I think they respond favourably.

"I think the consensus is that it'd just be too weird for her to see. I think anybody, not just her, I don't know her, I feel like I know her but I don't know her, I've never met her, but I can't imagine anyone, much less someone like her, going to something like that. And then, on top of that, there's the other hundreds of people in the room when it happens, and if they knew Barbara Streisand was there while I was doing this play about Barbara Streisand, it would just not work, at all.

"It would be like that play that Helen Mirren's in about the Queen; if the Queen went to see that, wouldn't it be weird? But this is also not a true story, I feel like that one is a true story, this one is totally made up. It was totally strange, and if the audience knew it would be impossible. And if the audience knew, it would be unfair on her. I think the only way it could work is if we do a benefit; a one-night only performance for her and her friends."

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Do you find the experience of doing a one-man show daunting or exciting, or a bit of both?

"Oh yeah, I mean it's thrilling. It's exhausting and it can be very mentally taxing, I'm not a very pleasant person two hours before the show starts. I'm great during the show and great after the show, it's almost like my body knows however I'm feeling before a show, I have to detox all my negativity and bad mood, and so it all comes out before the show starts

"And by the time I go on I'm happy, 'cause I have to be happy in the play. And hopefully infect joy in others. So sometimes the last couple of hours of the day before I go on stage aren't very fun."

One of your best loved roles is obviously Marc in Ugly Betty; is this character similar to him in any way or completely different?

"No, he's not, but his boyfriend character Barry is kind of like Marc. But there's maybe a little bit of Wilhelmina, a bit of Vanessa Williams in my Barbara, because I learned so much from Vanessa about fame and glamour. She's my first real really famous friend, and I love her so much.

"So there may be a little bit of her, well not really her, more like Wilhelmina. I do think the people who are big Ugly Betty fans, but not really theatregoers, come to see the show because I'm in it and they love it, because it's funny and it's warm and it's moving, it's extremely sweet at times. There's also some great catty, snarky moments, it sort of does serve the same feeling that Ugly Betty does."

Buyer & Cellar will be staged at London's Menier Chocolate Factory from March 19 to May 2, with previews from March 12.

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